When Jason Williams suited up for the Detroit Red Wings, he and his mates looked forward to a special playoff tradition every spring.

No, it wasn’t the octopi tossing.

It was when Al Sobotka, the Detroit Zamboni driver, would fire up the grill at Joe Louis Arena and cook a feast for the team throughout the postseason.

“Big Al’s Barbecue — we could smell it on the ice during practice and couldn’t wait for it,” Williams recalled. “When the weather was nice, he would set up tables outside. You could bring your family, too. It was a reminder that this is playoff hockey and another little thing after every round.

“So let’s get ready for the next series and if you want to keep the barbecue going, it’s a little incentive.”

Williams is trying to revive the spirit of those get-togethers as head coach of the Elgin-Middlesex minor midget AAA team, albeit with a trip to Boston Pizza or a special dinner gathering. The first-place Chiefs, unbeaten in the Alliance regular season, survived a first-round scare against Lambton and start their semifinal series against Huron-Perth Saturday, 4:45 p.m. in Komoka.

The Jr. Sting pushed the heavy favourites to the brink before the Chiefs rallied to win the final two in a five-game struggle.

“We won the first game 7-0 and that was our Achilles’ heel,” Williams said. “We talked about how Tampa Bay went through the (NHL) season last year and didn’t have a lot of meaningful games the last part of their schedule. Then, you come up against teams (like Columbus) that were in a dog fight and already in playoff mode and you have to be mentally prepared. Lambton beat us in overtime in Game 2, then out-competed us in the first two periods of Game 3. They were working hard and blocking shots.

“It was the same thing last year (in major bantam). We were supposed to roll on Sun County in the first round and they pushed us to the edge.

“Going through this kind of adversity is good. If we’re not ready to play against Huron-Perth, we’ll find ourselves in the same spot.”

The semifinal winner earns an automatic spot at the OHL Cup end-of-year showcase and a berth in the league final against the Waterloo-Hamilton winner. At worst, the two losers meet in another series for the Alliance’s third Cup berth. Then, the eventual fourth-place club still gets a wild-card play-in game.

One of the Chiefs’ big advantages is their experience on their bench. Williams won the Stanley Cup in 2003 and defensive coach Danny Syvret was captain of the 2005 Memorial Cup champion Knights, considered the best team in Canadian Hockey League history.

Williams’ brother Darren, the first person he would call for advice after every game he played, is also part of the coaching staff.

Jason Williams.

“We thought we would be very competitive and talked about it in the beginning,” Jason said. “I mentioned to them about Danny’s run (a record 29-0-2) with the Knights and the team he played on and that maybe we could do something like that. All of a sudden, we have 5 to 10 games left in the season and hadn’t lost yet. I started to think, maybe this could happen.

“We’ve tried to prepare them every game and they’ve worked so hard. They come to the rink every day and want to get better. They’re a very dedicated group.”

The Chiefs finished the regular schedule with a 25-0-8 record in the league and boast a 43-9-9 mark, including tournaments. They have a handful of top-end OHL prospects and enough firepower up front that can put even the best teams from the Greater Toronto Area on their heels.

“You want to end it to the right way,” Williams said. “That’s winning a championship and hopefully getting to the OHL Cup and you never know what’s going to happen there.

“These guys want to win. There’s a lot of pressure because scouts are watching them, but you’ve got to put that aside. The better we do as a team, the better every individual will do.”

If their season lasts long enough, it might even be nice enough outside to have a Big Al-style team barbecue.